When Jane Goodall opened the Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Centre in 1992 she knew she was embarking on an enormous undertaking. The orphaned chimps whose mothers had been killed would need to be cared for for the rest of their lives – and with a life expectancy of over 60 years, this represents a significant and long-term financial obligation for the Institute.
Many of her colleagues urged her not to get involved with these young chimpanzees. But for Jane, abandoning these animals was never an option. Her response was, “How could I turn my back on their outstretched hands, their pleading eyes, and their pathetic, malnourished bodies?”
Located within the JGI-managed Tchimpounga Natural Reserve in the Republic of Congo, Tchimpounga is currently the largest refuge for orphaned chimpanzees on the African continent. Inside its protected borders, and under the watchful eye of JGI’s caregivers, around 150 chimpanzees are being given a second chance at life. They thrive within the sanctuary’s forest habitats, socializing with other chimpanzees, overcoming the injuries and trauma they’ve suffered.
Tchimpounga today is much more than just a safe haven for chimps. It is also becoming a leading centre for non-invasive chimpanzee research. JGI is now collaborating with world-renowned research institutions such as the Max Planck Institute and Harvard University. Through the study of chimpanzees at sanctuaries such as Tchimpounga, it is anticipated that researchers can obtain an accurate understanding of chimpanzee capabilities while supporting both welfare and conservation efforts.
The area surrounding Tchimpounga is also the focus of JGI’s preliminary feasibility studies for the potential reintroduction of chimpanzees back into the wild. JGI is currently working to determine if and where suitable habitat exists for the reintroduction of some of the chimpanzees within the Republic of Congo.
Lastly, Tchimpounga is contributing to JGI’s community-centred conservation work. In Congo, JGI engages the villagers living in the areas adjacent to the sanctuary and reserve as partners, and is working to improve their livelihoods, access to education and health care.
Perhaps most importantly, when people visit our sanctuary they often for the first time come face-to-face with the humanity of chimpanzees. Local school children who are frequent visitors to Tchimpounga and participants in our educational activities, will grow up understanding the importance of protecting chimpanzees and their fragile ecosystems. Many adults have also stated that after visiting Tchimpounga, they will never again look at these beautiful creatures in the same way. At the epicentre for the extinction crisis, JGI and Tchimpounga are working to change the hearts and minds of the people upon whom the chimpanzees’ survival depends.
Because of their great similarities to humans – both biological and social – chimpanzees offer us great insights into our evolutionary past and our future.
As we observe and document the world of chimpanzees, we learn more about our own behaviors and social patterns, our impact on the ecosystem and even our spread of disease. Chimp research at Gombe National Park in Tanzania and elsewhere also informs the development of strategies to protect chimpanzees and their habitats.
JGI’s chimpanzee research program includes:
The Jane Goodall Institute's scientific team continuously adds to our knowledge about chimpanzees. Chimpanzee research at Gombe National Park in Tanzania, founded by Jane Goodall in 1960, helps us understand our closest relatives, chimpanzees, and ultimately ourselves.
The Gombe Stream Research Center was founded in 1965 to advance Jane Goodall’s revolutionary findings about chimpanzee tool-making and other behaviours. It also is a living laboratory, home to the world’s most studied group of wild chimpanzees. The Center’s mission is to operate a world-class research station in which the best available methods are used to continue and further develop the long-term primate research projects begun by Dr. Jane Goodall, and to advance basic science, support conservation, and train Tanzanian scientists.
Recent findings through fecal analysis have enlightened us about disease transmission and HIV origins, while behaviour research focuses on aggression and territoriality, chimpanzee culture, and more.
Learn more about Gombe Stream Research Centre
Observing and doing non-invasive research on captive chimpanzees has also been a critical component of discovering all we know today about chimpanzees.
JGI’s Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Center works primarily to rehabilitate orphaned chimpanzees. But the sanctuary also offers researchers the unique opportunity to study our closest relatives – chimpanzees – in a controlled environment, but in a more natural and humane setting than a laboratory. Orphans at the sanctuary live in groups much as they would in the wild. This setting allows for organic social development and learning, and can provide researchers insights into a young chimpanzee’s growth. In addition, researchers are able to observe the chimpanzees without impacting the subjects.
Tchimpounga hosts several research groups studying the evolutionary links between humans and chimpanzees. Even though we share approximately 98% of our DNA with chimps, there are several important differences ranging from the physical – for example, humans are bipedal while chimpanzees are quadrupeds – to the cognitive. JGI’s research partners, the Max Planck Institute and Duke University, use non-invasive research methods to study the links between human and chimpanzee development. They make behavioral observations of young chimpanzees, bonobos, and human children and pose challenges designed to test individual ability to problem-solve. By comparing the results of these tests, researchers can help shed light on the evolution of human social cognition.
Researchers also examine the importance of individual personalities and emotional responses in problem-solving abilities. Does one individual’s sharp temper or level-headedness enhance or reduce their ability to solve an issue? This is a relatively uncharted territory within non-human primate cognitive science.
Past research performed at Tchimpounga has also included genetic studies. DNA collected from fecal samples was analyzed to perform paternity tests and to determine the sub-species structure of chimpanzee across Africa. Conservationists wondered if the genetic difference between sub-species was great enough to warrant separate conservation plans; so far, no data has shown that the sub-species are significantly different.
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